Ohio State, Apple team up on unique technology initiative

How does a university support innovation for students, spur career readiness in one of today’s fastest-growing fields and support the broader community?

There’s an app for that.

Ohio State University announced Wednesday that it will work with Apple in the tech company’s most-aggressive collaboration with any university to date.

Ohio State’s new Digital Flagship University initiative will place an iPad into the hands of every incoming undergraduate student beginning next school year and includes the creation of an iOS design laboratory for the university and members of the community. It also will establish increased opportunities for students to learn coding skills and mobile app development.

Ohio State already has been designated an Apple Distinguished School, which means it demonstrates Apple’s vision for learning with technology. More than 400 K-12 schools and universities around the world have earned that designation.

But the Digital Flagship University program announced Wednesday is unlike any other collaboration that the tech giant has established.

“We think this is really going be a partnership that gives us opportunities to do things that are special, and (to do so) in close collaboration with truly one of the most innovative companies in the world is something that we see as an advantage,” said Ohio State President Michael V. Drake.

The planned iOS design lab will offer technological training to students, faculty, staff and members of the broader community interested in developing apps in Swift, Apple’s programming language used to create apps in the App Store. iOS is the operating system used for Apple devices.

The specifics of how the community will be able to use the lab are still being sorted out, university officials said. A temporary lab will open in 2018 and move to a permanent location in 2019. Neither location has been determined by the university.

Apple employees will be stationed at the lab to foster collaboration.

Apple CEO Tim Cook told The Dispatch that he was sold on the idea of a collaboration with Ohio State as soon as it was brought to him, after months of talks among employees on both sides.

"I loved it," he said in an interview Monday, "because the state universities are so important in terms of not only the mission they have serving large numbers of students, but also the community side of it."

Cook sees the planned iOS design lab as a key to encouraging more people to learn to code and to develop apps, which he sees as central to the economy going forward. And, of course, from his viewpoint, the more apps developed using Swift, the better.

"What they're going to find is, with the work we've put into Swift to make the language simple to use, they're going to get incredibly interested and as a consequence have a bright future," he said.

Ohio State already has implemented iPads in some of its programs and courses. Medical students have used the devices since 2013 as part of clinical instruction at Wexner Medical Center, and the marching band uses iPads to teach and learn its nationally recognized formations. (The band had a cameo in an iPad Air commercial in 2014).

Each incoming undergraduate student next school year will receive a 10.5-inch iPad Pro. They also will receive an Apple pencil stylus device, a smart keyboard, an Apple protection plan, an iPad case and a suite of education and utility apps. The retail value of that package is more than $1,000 per device.

That would put the total cost at more than $10 million to Ohio State, which will retain ownership of the devices. The university won’t pay that much though, because it will receive a discounted rate, but those terms are still being worked out, said Ohio State spokesman Chris Davey.

Ohio State will cover the cost of the devices, as well as the future costs to develop the iOS lab. Apple will provide personnel and expertise to the innovation lab, as well as its Swift coding technology and curriculum, Davey said.

Cook said Ohio State impressed him by thinking big. "They're very aggressive and forward-thinking," he said. "I can't imagine anybody else to do this with. Not only in terms of size, but I'm incredibly impressed with the leadership there. They're going to set an example that I hope many others will follow."